Author: Shri Manoj Joshi
Publications: The Economic Times
Dated: September 13, 2001
Till the fateful September 11, 2001,
when the World Trade Center towers were brought down, the Bombay blasts
of March 1993 were the worst act of urban terrorism. Bomb blasts occurred
in eleven places including the Bombay stock exchange, Air India building,
Centaur Hotel and Zaveri Bazar. Some 250 died in the blasts that took place
between 1.20 and 4 pm on March 12 and several times that number were injured.
The western world has never acknowledged
Bombay's day of horror - the US barely mentioned the event in its Patterns
of Global Terrorism report - nor given any credence to India's charge that
Pakistan played a major hand in the attack. In his address to the nation,
yesterday, President George W Bush has now set clear standards for retribution-
not only would the perpetrators be punished, but also countries that harboured
them.
Though the Mumbai underworld, led
by Dawood Ibrahim and Ibrahim Abdul Razak Memon aka Mustaq aka Tiger Memon
were held responsible for this ghastly event, the government of India has
clear evidence, through confiscated passport documents and confessions,
including that of Yakub Memon, one of 'Tiger's' brothers who was captured
and returned to India, that Pakistan was involved in the training of the
terrorists as well as in supplying shelter to the fleeing Memon family.
The most damning evidence came from the movement of some 20 operatives
involved in the blasts who left Mumbai for Dubai in various dates in February
1993. From there they went in three groups on February 9, 13 and 20, 1993
to Islamabad where they were whisked through the airport without going
through immigration formalities. After three weeks of training comprising
of physical exercises, use of explosive devices, firing AK-47s and grenades,
they returned to Dubai, again without going through Islamabad immigration.
However, their entry and exit were
recorded in their passports in Dubai, the visas they got had been pinned
to their passports. The terrorist leaders made an effort to destroy these
passports, but some of them survived and were recovered by the authorities
from some of the suspects. Additional evidence came from the escape of
the Memon family which is still facing trial for the blasts. Subsequently
some of the family returned and are facing trial in Mumbai courts, but
the ring-leader, 'Tiger' Memon remains in Pakistan and has affiliated himself
with the Kashmiri Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen. Yakub Memon, his brother who was
arrested a year later, had on him a Pakistani identity card and a passport
which had been used for travelling to Bangkok, Dubai and Karachi.
Ironically, despite the Bombay blasts,
the new Clinton Administration that took office in January 1993, made it
a point to remove the Damocles sword of being declared a state sponsor
of terrorism hanging over Pakistan. Indeed, through 1992, the George Bush
administration had been warning Pakistan to clean up its act. But the new
administration thought otherwise, it played down India's charges of Pakistani
involvement and US officials told their Indian counterparts that they could
not go by Indian evidence alone and that they needed to independently confirm
Pakistan's complicity. That year, instead of moving along that direction,
the Clinton administration sought to question India's bona fides in Kashmir,
and worse, play an active role in creating the Taliban.
It is important to recapitulate
this recent history if we have to see what India's attitude ought to be
to Tuesday's outrage. Undoubtedly it has to be one of condemnation of the
terrorists and condolences to those who lost their near and dear ones.
Apart from this India ought to urge the new Bush Junior's administration
to take off where Bush Senior left off and pinpoint the role of terrorists
and their patrons living in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This does not mean
that India should avenge the Pakistani complicity in the blasts eight years
after the event. But it does mean that it can join the US in forging a
coalition of like-minded states to fight an unyielding battle against terrorism.
This coalition need not comprise
just the so-called free world and democracies. Autocracies like China and
semi-democracies like Russia abhor terrorism as well. But the key element
in this battle has to be an acceptance that the fight against terrorism
is indivisible and absolute. There cannot be any 'ifs' and 'buts'. In other
words, the target has to be any individuals or organisations that seek
to make a political point by targeting innocents and non-combatants. There
can be no exceptions in this battle because for too long terrorists have
sheltered under the cover of being this or that country's 'freedom fighters.'
